


be in blossom

by kemia



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ferdibert Flashbang (Fire Emblem), Flower Language, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, Valentine’s Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 02:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22708186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kemia/pseuds/kemia
Summary: hubert learns of a secret message through flower language and hits back with a secret of his own.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 7
Kudos: 147
Collections: Ferdibert Gang Valentine Flashbang





	be in blossom

**Author's Note:**

> i was so grateful to be a mod for such a lovely event! this piece is accompanied by art by my just as lovely partner, @kaoruhakaze on twitter! the direct link to their art that accompanies this piece is here:
> 
> https://twitter.com/kaoruhakaze/status/1228202188079394816?s=21 go support them!
> 
> i hope you enjoy our collab!

“Tell me, Hubert, do you know anything of Fódlan’s ancient language of flowers?”

Ferdinand asked the question with a smug smile tugging at his lips, partly wrapped around the edge of a teacup. He took a sip, eyes serenely falling closed as he indulged in the flavor and aroma of his favorite leaves. 

Hubert’s eyes traced the walls of flora that trapped the two men in their own moment in time. This was their secret sanctuary, away from their duties, that they had been kindly granted for them to use for their tea times by the emperor herself. None else knew of this place but the two of them and Edelgard, and that brought Hubert both comfort and anxiety.

“No, I can’t say I do.” Most of the flowers that bloomed along the hedged walls and at their feet were placed here by the emperor, at the recommendation of some of the girls in her counsel - with the exception, of course, of the wall of those gaudy abominations that Ferdinand said were “Gloucester roses”. He had never been one to take them for anything but atmospheric, and Ferdinand was usually the one who tended to them. Hubert couldn’t exactly take himself for a green thumb when his skin on his hands was so marred and black.

“Well, ah… That makes this a bit more difficult to explain, then.” Ferdinand’s gloved hand rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck. “You see… given the occasion, I have taken it upon myself to plant and tend to a new kind of flower in this garden. It holds within it a … well, a special meaning.” His eyes motion to an ornate pot, nestled in the corner of the garden with nothing yet to show but soil. 

Hubert stared at it intently for a moment. “Alright. If you’ve chosen to take up gardening as a hobby, that’s fine and well, I suppose.” He turned back, that same intent gaze watching Ferdinand’s demeanor grow more awkward by the second. “So I take it whatever you planted is supposed to mean something?”

He watched Ferdinand’s loud, outspoken mouth fall closed, then begin to stammer. It was puzzling. Ferdinand’s normal confidence seemed to be evading him, much like he was evading meeting Hubert’s eyes.

“Do you... really not know what today is?”

Hubert only grew more puzzled, his brows pulling together. “It is the fourteenth of the Pegasus Moon. Is there something else that I’m not understanding here?”

Ferdinand fell silent. He only stared down into his teacup with an expression like his thoughts were waging war. “Ferdinand,” Hubert prodded.

He jolted back to attention, laughing off his strange behavior. “What? Oh, it’s nothing.” A smile lined his lips, though tinged with a bit of sadness that was absent before. “You will just have to do your research, then.”

Still perplexed, but recognizing Ferdinand’s need to escape this line of conversation, Hubert decided to let it go. He traced his finger around the rim of his cup of coffee. “First, you’ll have to tell me what you planted.”

Ferdinand propped his elbow onto the table, leaning his cheek into his palm. “Gardenias.”

* * *

For all of the books within the palace walls, and for all of the books he analyzed with the same dour face, Hubert couldn’t make the connection between gardenias and whatever the hell the occasion was on the 14th of the Pegasus Moon. His patience and resources were running thin, so he had to consider his options.

At first, he couldn’t fathom who he could possibly know with such a niche knowledge of flower language. Then, out of sheer desperation to know and a small possibility guiding him, he found himself at the door of an old friend. He knocked, eloquent and loud, and a clatter from behind the door followed. A few more moments passed with only shuffling noises and a shrill “Don’t come in here!” before the entrance slowly creaked open.

“Who… Who’s there?”

“As lively as ever, Bernadetta.”

“Oh... Hubert!” Her fearful tone faded away for something more cheerful. The door parted the rest of the way, revealing the small, purple figure in a dirt-covered smock. “What, um… What brings you here? Did I do something wrong? Oh no… You’re here because I did something awful, aren’t you? Are you -”

A finger rose to cover her open lips, and they immediately fell shut from a wayward glance. Then, she giggled. “I was … just joking. I know better. It’s good to see you.”

Hubert smiled. “It’s good to see you, as well.” As Bernadetta moved to allow him welcome, his serious demeanor returned. “I have need of your knowledge of … plants.”

Bernadetta, having expected more of a conversation, had immediately disappeared behind a corner to seek out coffee beans. She peeked back from behind the wall. “Of… plants?”

Sighing, Hubert crossed his arms, trying to hide the puzzlement that kept blooming to his face when he thought about it. “I need to know more about a certain flower. More precisely, what said flower _represents_ in Fòdlan’s flower language.”

“Oh! Flower language.” Having abandoned the thought of coffee, she came traipsing back into the foyer. “I _do_ think I have a book about that, or at least I used to. I read it a lot growing up. What flower do you need to know about?”

Hubert rubbed at his chin, trying to look anywhere but Bernadetta’s eager eyes. While he had been friends with the heiress of Varley (or the Bear of Varley, as they now called her), it was still embarrassing, somehow, to utter these words in her presence. “Ferdinand told me he planted _gardenias_ in our meeting place to mark the fourteenth of the Pegasus Moon, but I hardly know what he means.”

He watched Bernadetta’s eyes grow owlish, her lips parted but unspeaking, much like Ferdinand’s had. From the looks of it, if she’d been holding something, she’d certainly have dropped it.

“H… Hubert?”

“Yes, Bernadetta?”

“Th - The fourteenth of the Pegasus Moon is _Valentine’s Day._ And gardenias… They, um…”

Hubert quirked a brow. “Valentine’s Day?”

“Yes… And gardenias, they, uh… Well…”

* * *

As Hubert had once surmised, he did not have a green thumb. So, in the heat of the summer, Hubert invited Bernadetta to be the fourth confidant to partake in their secret garden.

“Will you be okay tending to it? Enbarr is kind of a long way to go to take care of these all the time… And I don’t… really like traveling that much.”

He smirked, gently patting the soil with a silent fear of cursing the seed beneath. “It will be fine. I appreciate everything you’ve taught me, Bernadetta - and I especially appreciate you acquiring this for me.” He sat back on his haunches, lost in thought. To respond to Ferdinand’s hidden message with one of his own… Was it perhaps _too_ melodramatic? The mere concept painted his pale face a different shade.

Bernadetta watched, her hands anxiously hugging the handle of a watering can. “To think you guys had a _secret garden,_ and that you’re using _flowers_ to - ah, it’s like a novel! A cheesy, classic r-”

“Please, Bernadetta. That’s… quite enough.” Hubert was visibly flustered. Normally, his schemes had some criminal or even murderous intent… to be doing something so embarrassing for the sake of pleasing _Ferdinand,_ a former incorrigible pest, a headstrong fool and pleasant company, well…

Something about it made him very happy. 

* * *

As months faded in blurs of friend changing weather and cordial teatimes, the gardenias were never mentioned again. But Hubert always noticed them, watching the plant change and grow. He knew Ferdinand was still thinking of them, too - the prime minister would steal glances every now and then, and his expression would lose its sunny luster, if only for a moment.

But today, the fourteenth of the Pegasus Moon, the gardenias were in perfect bloom, the petals falling in gentle spirals. Ferdinand couldn’t keep his eyes off of them. 

“How was the meeting with the Almyran diplomats? Were you able to come to any agreements?”

“Hm? Oh… Yes, we… had some agreements…”

Hubert could only watch with half-lidded eyes as his every attempt to start a conversation failed, and the lack of that sunlight shining into their long, private talks was miserable.

He figured he’d waited long enough. Still, the anticipation sent a flood of warmth to his ears.

His chin resting casually on the back of his hand, he said plainly, “You know, Ferdinand… I finally discovered the meaning behind the gardenias.”

Ferdinand nearly tipped his cup over.

His attention jerked quickly back to Hubert’s face. “You - You have?” That voice… so meek and wondering. Hubert felt it hardly suited him.

“I have, in fact. Though, it did take some time…” With a small smile, just as unbefitting for himself, he moved to stand. “ _A secret love._ ”

Ferdinand began to retreat in on himself in the slightest ways, like bringing his teacup to his lips with two shaking hands before he was able to speak. “Yes, well, I - You don’t - I don’t -”

Hubert, his clothes billowing in the breeze behind him, smoothly moved to a small hedge at the base of the arch above their table. “I also learned some _other_ things, about other flowers. Would you care to take a look?”

The prime minister simply gawked at the other man, sitting stone still until his panic clearly overrode the part of his brain telling him to stay. With glass steps, he approached the spot where Hubert stood.

With one hand, Hubert brushed aside the foliage to reveal a hidden potted flower, standing tall and stained in hues of blackest night.

“A…” Ferdinand swallowed, his throat dry, eyes scurrying between the plant and Hubert’s pleasant gaze. “A daylily. I’ve never seen this kind before.”

“A _black ambrosia_ daylily,” Hubert quickly followed, a saccharine hint to his voice. “In Fòdlan’s flower language, said to represent a _reciprocated_ love.”

There was no noble grace in the stammer that fell from Ferdinand’s lips, eyeing Hubert as though he’d seen the very moon he admired fall from the sky. “You mean … You do? Do you really mean it?”

“Yes, I do,” Hubert said as though it were an objective fact, like him serving Lady Edelgard or the world being rotten to the core. “Though, I’ve… never been one to understand, let alone _communicate_ romantic sentiment. I thought … this would do.”

His whole self visibly trembling, Ferdinand kneeled and pulled the flower pot into his arms. Hubert took the opportunity to close the space between them, a hand twining with a strand of auburn hair while the other settled on Ferdinand’s arm to calm him.

“You _really_ had to choose a flower that takes a year to bloom, didn’t you. Waiting was agony. And it was agony for you, too, surely, with all the wondering if I’d ever take your hint.”

Now wearing a smile, Ferdinand breathed deeply, the joy blooming in his chest. “There weren’t any others that would have been sufficient.” He looked from the daylily to the gardenias. “Say, don’t you think these flowers look a bit like us?”  
  
Hubert chuckled. “What, because they’re white and black?”

“Yes! Like day and night. Like sun and moon.” Those beautiful honey eyes drifted back to Hubert, and the shadow of a man grew red with the very sentiment he’d waited so long to express. The hand on Ferdinand’s arm slipped under his chin, and Hubert brought his face close to meet their lips. So many years of tension faded, a mere speck when eclipsed by the sort of pining that historians tell their tales about. When Hubert pulled back, the pair set their foreheads together, lost in their moment, in this world hidden away.

“Like... gardenias and daylilies,” Ferdinand suggested between a grin. Hubert couldn’t help the adoring smile that crept across his face.

“Like gardenias and daylilies.”


End file.
